[Suitcase] Project, the Philippine Women Centre Ontario (PWC-ON), in collaboration with the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada (FCYA/UKPC-ON) AND SIKLAB Ontario, invites everyone to their upcoming exhibit, “Our Voices: A Portrait Series Project,” funded by the Toronto Arts Council. The art exhibit will showcase art work collectively produced by members of the Filipino Canadian community that captures the day-to-day lived experiences and struggles of Filipino Canadian youth, women, and workers in Toronto. The event will be held at Beit Zatoun, on May 31^st and June 1^st.  

Now Canada’s third largest visible minority group, the Filipino Canadian community continues to be at the social, political and economic margins of Canadian society. This is evidently seen in the community’s blatant representation in low-wage service sector work, domestic work and temporary contractual work schemes. Currently, over 100,000 Filipino women came to Canada as Live-in Caregivers and as of 2012, the Philippines has been Canada’s top source of temporary foreign workers. These exploitative labour programs not only lock the community into poverty, but also render it invisible and marginalized in Canadian society.

“This exhibit is part of our continuing assertion to have our voices heard in Canada. It signifies our persistent efforts to shatter our invisibility and resist our community’s intensifying exclusion and marginalization”, states Charie Siddayao, project coordinator and member of PWC-ON.

“Our Voices” project features the narratives of the Filipino Canadian community through visual arts and mixed-media.  Through a process of direct community integration and documentation of the everyday realities of students, youth, women and workers in the Filipino Canadian community, the art works not only illustrate our community’s aspirations for a better future, but also our struggles for genuine settlement and integration as part of the working class in Canada.

“Our Voices: A Portrait Series”
Art Exhibit at Beit Zatoun
612 Markham Street
Toronto, Ontario
May 31^st – 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM
June 1^st – 12 PM – 5 PM

 

For more information, please contact:

Charie Siddayao or Bryan Taguba
(416) 519-2553
www.magkaisacentre.org
Email: ukpc-on@magkaisacentre.org
Facebook: Ugnayan Ontario
Twitter: @ugnayanontario

This event is free and light refreshments will be served.